Golf: The warm up.

... Golf: The warm up. Golfers need to be educated about the benefits of warm-ups, particularly for injury prevention, according to a group of Australian researchers. A survey of more than a thousand randomly-selected amateur golfers from three different golfing venues in Melbourne in June 1999 confirmed the widely-held suspicion that most golfers don't bother warming up. More than 70% of the sample stated that they never or seldom warmed up, while a mere 3.8% reported warming up on every occasion they played. Golfers claiming to warm up stated that they generally performed stretches (89.6%), ball hits (27.1%) or air swings (23%), with only 0.2% performing aerobic exercise. The most common reasons given for warming up included: To play better (74.5%) To prevent injury (27%) Because everyone else does (13.2%) Common reasons for not warming up were: Don't need to (38.7%) Don't have enough time (36.4%) Can't be bothered (33.7%) The researchers point out that, according to emergency departments and sports medicine clinics,

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